


Raising the dead

by LittleLuciernagaSide (littleLuciernaga)



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, the days and nights of pleiades oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26774374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleLuciernaga/pseuds/LittleLuciernagaSide
Summary: The odd patterns of a guardian's life cycle present themselves before an older librarian and oracle.(Events take place after my previous fic ‘The Days And Nights Of Pleiades’, so there are endgame spoilers and context from there! Would strongly suggest reading as supplementary material.)
Relationships: Aoba Tsumugi/Sakasaki Natsume
Kudos: 17





	Raising the dead

How on Earth must Sora have felt when he came upon a dying man washed out by the beach?

It had never occurred to Tsumugi to wonder about any of that until he came upon a very similar position that his child must’ve found himself in so long ago. This time around, though, instead of finding anybody remotely like himself struggling to breathe by the beach, it’s the opposite; it’s someone frail and innocent and alarmingly small-- It’s a kid.

Tsumugi naturally wastes no time and leaves everything he’s doing to rush to the shore, his steps cut short by the draggy and sinking sand. Up close, he’s surprised to realize not only that the sickenly pale and raven, curly-haired child seems to be a boy, but that he must’ve been no older than six years old. 

Barely past toddlerhood, and already facing such hardship… the Old Lands could certainly be cruel.

After checking for a pulse and providing the proper pumps to the little one’s chest to drive any excess water out of him, Tsumugi realizes he’s the only person around in miles. No matter how long he waits, how hard he looks around and how loud he yells for a parent, a friend--anybody that could’ve known the boy, nobody ever comes to join them save the usual sound of crashing waves and the noisy seagulls. It’s almost like the poor thing had sprung out of the ocean itself.

One would probably expect Tsumugi to panic and fret as he usually does over the simplest of things, but he’s surprisingly cool-headed when he takes action; after a few appropriate wards to prevent the little one’s life to remain in any sort of peril, he leaves all of his fishing equipment and catches behind to make his way back home with nothing but his wooden staff and the passed out boy tucked snug against his shoulder, tiny arms wrapped around Tsumugi’s neck for a safety he probably hadn’t known in a long, long time.

\--

The chiding for returning home without fish is to be expected, as well as the scolding for essentially stealing a child from the wild, but nothing could’ve prepared Tsumugi for Natsume’s alarmed first word upon properly seeing the boy’s face:

“ _Niisan_ -”

Tsumugi only raises his eyebrows.

“...Come again?”

The redhead glares.

“You clueless little-!!!” Natsume looks between him and the sleeping boy, still nestled in Tsumugi’s arms. The Oracle’s usually delicate features are troubled and agitated, like he’s seeing a dangerous creature snug in his lover’s hold. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel that energy coming from that child? That--that _feeling_ that oozes out of him?”

“Um…” Tsumugi smiles apologetically, unable to feel the gravity of the situation just yet. “I think my magic begins and ends with fortunes and healing...I’m sorry.”

Natsume doesn’t even allow himself the time to be irritated any further by Tsumugi’s unhelpfulness. Instead, he looks intently at the boy, tilting his head down at many angles and tracing the air around his sleeping face as if drawing lines and spells. After a bit of doing this, he draws back his hand almost fearfully and faces Tsumugi with distraught eyes.

“Where--no, _how_ \--”

“Easy now, Natsume-kun…” Tsumugi tells him, gently reaching for his shoulder. “There’s not much to explain… I found him all by himself while I was fishing. I think he was dying.”

That doesn’t reassure Natsume at all, and when he realizes the opposite effect of his words, Tsumugi backtracks in a rush.

“B-But he’s okay now, I made sure! He’s just lost a lot of energy on the way here...I think he’ll be fine if he has a good meal and proper rest.”

Though Natsume quiets down, he’s clearly not any less tense. His fingers ghost over the boy’s face to move some hair out of his face, and the very hint of his touch is the first thing in hours that finally triggers something out of him.

Tsumugi is surprised to see that the little eyes that slowly open to stare back at him are a deep and bloody red, alarmingly beautiful and like nothing he’d ever seen before. His gut reaction to fret over the unknown almost makes him flinch away, but he’s thankfully worried enough about the child and too aware of his grip on him not to do as much. Natsume, on the other hand, looks something between hopeful and concerned at the familiar sight of such eyes, and is actually the first one to properly address the boy.

“You--” He says, but then reigns himself to make his voice sound gentler. “Are you…?”

Instead of replying, the boy cries when he recognizes Natsume’s face.

\--

It’s hard to tell who suffers the most at the moment, but Tsumugi is, for once in his life, not the one in that position. 

As happy as this should make him, it’s quite difficult to have the words for Natsume, who is so unusually speechless, or the little boy who insists to stay locked tight in Sora’s old room, where the sun won’t reach him. 

All he can really do is listen, which Natsume finally allows him after the quiet insistence of his favors and kindness over the following days wear him down. His Oracle sighs as they lay face to face in bed, the weight of a world’s worth of worries escaping him in a single breath.

“...He knows _exactly_ who he is.” Natsume starts, quiet and so serious Tsumugi has no need to ask who he refers to. The librarian’s only encouragement for him to keep speaking is the caress of his thumb over Natsume’s cheek, and the quietest of hums. “And he knows who I am, too.”

“Mm...wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

Natsume hesitates.

“Normally, yes.” He says, “But that’s the problem. There’s nothing _normal_ about this situation...and that of our past lives.”

Even Tsumugi isn’t foolish enough to ask why; regardless of Natsume’s adoration of his brothers, even he couldn’t deny the questionable nature of his relationship with Rei-- his most loving, jealous and severe guardian. But even in light of Rei’s flaws and his being the main reason the Oracle had no freedom, Natsume was also the Oracle at all because of him. Only all the time he’d spent with his books and magic could make him as powerful as he was.

That being the case, though, there was no way the little boy didn’t also know all of this if it was so obvious even to an outsider like Tsumugi.

And as a little kid, meeting someone you _know_ you did wrong in a previous life, even if it wasn’t exactly you...It must be painful.

As Tsumugi mulls over it all, Natsume seems to do it as well. And because he’s fiercer and blunter and usually the one to break the silences first, Tsumugi knows it’s his turn to do as much. His gentle touch becomes firmer as he cups Natsume’s cheek to properly call his attention.

“Regardless of everything that might’ve happened between you…” Tsumugi starts, olive eyes scrunched in seriousness, “I want to help. Both him and you.”

Natsume gives him a dubious look.

“...Define _help_.”

“Y-you know, um.” Tsumugi falters under such untrusting eyes, but clears his throat to stand his ground. “The way you and Sora-kun helped me--if you’d both allow it. I think I know a thing or two about guilt, if that’s what troubles him. I’m not sure how, but...yeah. I wouldn’t mind figuring it out.”

The way Tsumugi expresses so easily what Natsume couldn’t dare say out loud is enough to get his expression to soften. ‘Guilt’ was certainly a word for it, for starters… but Natsume couldn’t get too comfortable with the ease Tsumugi could momentarily bring him, and the thought of little Rei’s crying face is enough for him to hesitate once more.

“...You’re talking _big_ game, you know.” Natsume tells him, after a bit. “This is nothing like taking in stray cats or _your_ situation. You were already an _adult_ when you came here.”

Tsumugi’s reply comes surprisingly easy, after a laugh.

“Sure, but to be honest, raising a child seems a lot easier than making a grown man unlearn a lifetime of bad habits and unhealthy thoughts. Especially since I think some of those are probably never leaving me.”

Natsume’s eye twitches.

“ _Fair point_.”

“So with that said--”

“Hold on,” Natsume cuts him off, “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Did you not see how he reacted to, well...”

To _him_ , obviously. But instead of saying so, Tsumugi smiles in, hopefully, a reassuring fashion.

“I think it’s something that can be talked out. Wouldn’t you like to know exactly what he remembers about you? And how could you repair your relationship?”

Though Natsume says nothing, the small glint of hope in his eyes outweighs the fear in his silence. Tsumugi holds both of his hands now, his grip uncharacteristically confident.

“Just say the word, Natsume-kun.” He tells him. “I’ll support you in whatever you choose.”

Against all odds, it seems Natsume still hesitates. But even with that lingering fear that seems to hang over his every choice that involves fully trusting Tsumugi, he chooses to do so.

So it is that, after leaving Tsumugi hanging for one painful moment, Natsume heaves a much lighter sigh and his hands find and firmly interlace with his librarian’s. 

“Alright,” He declares, a bit of his usual boldness back in his voice. “We’ll _see_ what we can do.”

\--

Safe to say, Rei’s disposition greatly differs from his first impression when Natsume, aided by Tsumugi’s cues, reintroduces himself the next day not with fear and regret for the happenings of the past, but with gratitude for the things that worked.

A little hope for the future helped, too.


End file.
